You’re listening to a Barefoot Lawyer Reports on China presentation on the history of human rights’ abuses in modern communist China. To listen to other parts of this series, check the links in the description.

 

Chen Guangcheng: Another thing is about religion. The CCP tried to control the people and didn’t let them practice religions, but after Tiananmen Square, a lot of people changed their mind. They did not continue to believe in communism, and tried to find another thing to believe in. People became Christians and Catholics. More and more new religions were created. For example, Falun Gong; they believe in God, and they believe if they do the bad thing, they will be punished. 

 

Will Deatherage: It’s like divine justice.

 

Chen Guangcheng: Yeah. Since that time, more and more people believe that, including a lot of government officials. That made the CCP very scared. In 1999, the Communist Party tried to crack down on the Falun Gong practitioners. The Khan Party ignored all the laws, and the CCP created a new office. We call it Liu Yoling, which means 610 Office. The Office belongs to the CCP, and it is higher than the government. If the 610 Office wanted to do something, the government had to listen to them.

 

Will Deatherage: All right, wow! 

 

Chen Guangcheng: That office could request the police to do anything. The government cannot stop it. At that time, the police arrested a lot of Falun Gong practitioners, put them in jail, punished them and tortured them. They would come to your house, take whatever they wanted, and would even punish your relatives. At that time, I started to do human rights work there, and some Falun Gong practitioners came to my house to ask me to help them. I told them the situation at that time, there was no law about practicing Falun Gong, but the CCP still puts a lot of people in jail.

 

Will Deatherage: Wow. So they would just throw people in jail without a law to justify it, it sounds like, right?

 

Chen Guangcheng: Exactly, just to put them there; but later, they had to justify how to do that. After five weeks, you have to release them or try to sentence them. But there’s no law to send them to jail. Sometimes they had to release them, and after several days or several weeks, they would arrest them again. They have to stay in jail another five weeks. Even after the CCP released them, they had no sentence; but after three days, they got a letter from the government, from the 610 Office. They said, “you have to go to jail and stay there three years”. 

 

Will Deatherage: Without any trial?

 

Chen Guangcheng:  No. Any trial? No. Any sentences? No. That did not pass the court. Just this CPP agency, no courts at all, nothing. So the people came to my house to ask me what we should do next up. I said, “okay, tell me what happened.” So they told me, no court, no sentence, no trial, no document. I told them, “that is illegal. Lock your house and go to another place to find a job. Just try to work there and make some money for your life. After several years, the situation will change.” That is China. That is a Communist China. And the leader, of course, believed me. They locked their house and went to another city and worked there. The situation has passed after several years, it looks like the CCP forgot that letter.

 

Will Deatherage: Forgot? Oh jeez.

 

Chen Guangcheng: Yeah. That was mainland China. After the Tiananmen Square crackdown, a lot of different things happened in rural China. People tried to protect their rights, tried to help the country become better and better. However, the current party spent all the time and money to protect their rights, their power; they ignored the people’s life. After the CCP crackdown on Falun Gong, they went to different villages, different cities, and put us on the wall, on the tree to let them know what happened; how the Khan Party illegally persecuted them, how the CCP did some bad thing for our country, and how God will help the people to tear down the CCP in the future. It also communicated how our country would become a democratic country. Even how the police first treated the communist party. For example, if the campaign asked them to go somewhere, to do something, they would ignore it, or they would just write a report to their leader such as “Oh, I just came back from there. Nothing there”. But in fact, they did not come out from their office.

 

Will Deatherage: It sounds like there was some resistance to a lot of the Communist Party’s crackdowns initially, right?

 

Chen Guangcheng: Exactly. The current party was very scared about that.

 

Chen Guangcheng has recently published an article about the CCP’s punishment of families of human rights activists in communist China. The article on public discourse is titled “Zhulian Implication by Relatio”. The article can be found at humanrights.catholic.edu under our Research and Analyses page.